"a university study showed that if you hold a coin a certain way (with some practice) you can almost guarantee that it will come up heads or tails"
No matter how I hold the coin I can guarantee that it will come up heads or tails. Since there's only two sides to coins it has to come up heads or tails! :)
Agree that there are websites out there which aren't specifically preserved by third parties (search engine cache and various internet archive sites aside). However, local criminals will be a point of interest for the local community so I'm sure that there will be a specific interest to retain this data.
Basically someone who is interested in keeping tabs on crime in their local community - Neighbourhood Watch, etc style. For example I'm sure someone will have a Google Maps mashup that takes the police data and tags it on a map of the UK (if there isn't one already of course!). Once the data is copied from the police site and into someone else's database it's that bit harder to delete.
concentrate on scarce resources and growing their market?
As an ex-GW gamer, given the prices of their miniatures I always assumed that they made their profits from the sale of lumps of metal and not so much by selling rulebooks. Granted the rulebook income (circa £20-£30 for a box set including some basic plastic miniatures) would be nice, but it pales when compared to the price of the figurines which (IIRC) was around £1-2 for basic and grew rapidly for larger, more complex or "hero" units. I know the amount I spent on units etc far outstripped the amount on rulebooks.
As you say they should therefore be trying to spread their rulebooks far and wide, and distribute playing aids to help existing gamers, hand out introductory simplified rules to draw in more etc. And then flog them scarce resources of bits of metal, entrance to GW tournaments, in-store events, etc.
Have to admit that I have now stopped playing GW games, partly due to the ever increasing cost of metal miniatures and the decreasing availability of cheaper plastic. Also we didn't ever move to the latest (at the time I quit) versions of their games as they seemed over simplified.
Never mind facebook, where were the ISP's filters?
While the ISPs are adding magic filters to automatically detect copyright infringing and business model damaging traffic, they should also add filters for other illegal activities. That way the children* would finally be safe
I can see a reason to give users the ability to lock down certain options. If something affects your in-game ability/skill then for multiplayer sessions you would want to give the person setting up the game the ability to lock down certain things. I don't play the MW games, so I don't know if FoV comes into that heading but if for example there was an option to change your run speed that certainly would.
Of course, that's just a reason why you'd want to give people the option to turn it off for multiplayer. Can't see any reason why you'd have it permanently turned off ...
Why not enable the option, collect stats on it (assuming you're able to without having privacy issues), and then use that information to inform you about which settings are popular and therefore which settings to focus on when "balancing" MW3
My £10 is (c) The Governor and Company of the Bank of England.
The extra "protection" whereby copyright laws could prevent copies being made which weren't being passed off as real (ie the billboards mentioned above) sort of makes sense, but I see plenty of pictures of money in various films, TV series, adverts etc. I guess it maybe depends on how similar those copies are, it's difficult to tell on the screen.
Although, you have to ask - if copyright is to promote the creation of art, would people really not print money if they didn't have copyright protection? :)
actually, have they just done some incredibly basic math?
Using the numbers Mike's found in 2004 takings were 9.3bn for 567 movies
Therefore, for 1037 movies in 2008 takings should be 9.3 * 1037/567 = 17.0bn, compared to actual of 9.7bn.
Obviously there's been a loss of 17.0 - 9.7 = 7.3bn from somewhere. Must be those thieves online!
Where has the 6bn loss come from if the gross takings have been flat at 9-10bn for the last 5 years? I assume that back in 2004, before widescale broadband etc, there wasn't so much downloading of movies as now so the 6bn looks far too high.
Claiming that you would have seen a 60%+ increase in revenue if it wasn't for those pesky kids seems like something else a "journalist" should have checked.
(ignoring inflation effects, I haven't looked into whether the numbers are in todays prices or not)
Of course it's not as good as Shakespeare - you'll never get that good by taking random lines from thousands of people. Every one knows you need random lines from an infinite number of monkeys!
(having said that I think the problem lies not with the boys in blue, but with the idiots in parliament - the ones who come up with the red tape, stupid ideas like ASBOs, letting problem estates fester, etc)
I think you should be able to apply real world systems to virtual worlds. If theft is part of the game you can't complain, you accepted the game rules by playing. Hacking the game however is not something you agreed to.
As an example, consider playing poker in a casino. During the night, two things happen - you have a bad run and loose a lot of chips to player A, and some chips are stolen from your pocket by player B. This is comparable to player A's rogue using his ingame theft skill to steal some gold, and player B hacking your account to transfer some gold.
Now, casinos and games like second life have systems to convert their in-game currency (chips and linden dollars) to "real" currency such as USD. In what way is player B's actions in the MMORPG any different to his actions in the casino? If you want to make it more similar, imagine the casino operates by crediting a card with your tokens which you use to place bets, and player B isntead of picking your pocket hacks the servers.
I think most people would agree that player B committed theft in the casino, why not in the MMORPG?
The situation is muddied where there's not an authorised market in the in-game currency, such as for Warcraft, so I'll leave that for the lawyers.
(and downloading a song isn't "theft". Theft is defined as the wrongful taking of the property of another. By downloading a song you haven't taken away the property of anyone. You have breached copyright, which is illegal, but it's not theft)
On the post: That Random Coin Toss? Not So Random Afterall...
Re:
"a university study showed that if you hold a coin a certain way (with some practice) you can almost guarantee that it will come up heads or tails"
No matter how I hold the coin I can guarantee that it will come up heads or tails. Since there's only two sides to coins it has to come up heads or tails! :)
On the post: Is Everyone Who Received Monday's Metro Toronto Guilty Of Child Porn Possession?
Re: Re: Nudity is not by itself illegal...
On the post: France Agrees With Spain In Saying Modding Nintendo DS Is Not Illegal
On the post: Good Luck Trying To Delete Stuff Off The Internet
Re:
Basically someone who is interested in keeping tabs on crime in their local community - Neighbourhood Watch, etc style. For example I'm sure someone will have a Google Maps mashup that takes the police data and tags it on a map of the UK (if there isn't one already of course!). Once the data is copied from the police site and into someone else's database it's that bit harder to delete.
On the post: Games Workshop Goes After Its Biggest Fans With Takedown Order
Re: Re: Re: durr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Designers'_Workshop
On the post: Games Workshop Goes After Its Biggest Fans With Takedown Order
Re:
On the post: Games Workshop Goes After Its Biggest Fans With Takedown Order
concentrate on scarce resources and growing their market?
As you say they should therefore be trying to spread their rulebooks far and wide, and distribute playing aids to help existing gamers, hand out introductory simplified rules to draw in more etc. And then flog them scarce resources of bits of metal, entrance to GW tournaments, in-store events, etc.
Have to admit that I have now stopped playing GW games, partly due to the ever increasing cost of metal miniatures and the decreasing availability of cheaper plastic. Also we didn't ever move to the latest (at the time I quit) versions of their games as they seemed over simplified.
On the post: Stop Wallowing And Start Doing Cool Stuff With Business Models, The Wil Wheaton Edition
Re: Re:
Happy get-rid-of-the-puritans day from the UK :)
On the post: Once Again, If The Gov't Has Data, It Will Be Abused
Re: "Our" Government
On the post: Don't Blame Facebook For Some Kids Beating Up Another Student
Where were the ISP cops?
While the ISPs are adding magic filters to automatically detect copyright infringing and business model damaging traffic, they should also add filters for other illegal activities. That way the children* would finally be safe
*Those with red hair at least
On the post: Modern Warfare 2 Shows How To Piss Off Fans
Of course, that's just a reason why you'd want to give people the option to turn it off for multiplayer. Can't see any reason why you'd have it permanently turned off ...
Why not enable the option, collect stats on it (assuming you're able to without having privacy issues), and then use that information to inform you about which settings are popular and therefore which settings to focus on when "balancing" MW3
On the post: Why Do Canada And Europe Copyright Money?
UK money too
The extra "protection" whereby copyright laws could prevent copies being made which weren't being passed off as real (ie the billboards mentioned above) sort of makes sense, but I see plenty of pictures of money in various films, TV series, adverts etc. I guess it maybe depends on how similar those copies are, it's difficult to tell on the screen.
Although, you have to ask - if copyright is to promote the creation of art, would people really not print money if they didn't have copyright protection? :)
On the post: DVR Owners Don't Watch Commercials... But Still Remember Them
Re:
Obligatory futurama quote: Thus solving the problem forever! (but ...) FOREVER!!
On the post: 60 Minutes Puts Forth Laughable, Factually Incorrect MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy
Re: 6bn loss?
Using the numbers Mike's found in 2004 takings were 9.3bn for 567 movies
Therefore, for 1037 movies in 2008 takings should be 9.3 * 1037/567 = 17.0bn, compared to actual of 9.7bn.
Obviously there's been a loss of 17.0 - 9.7 = 7.3bn from somewhere. Must be those thieves online!
On the post: 60 Minutes Puts Forth Laughable, Factually Incorrect MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy
6bn loss?
Claiming that you would have seen a 60%+ increase in revenue if it wasn't for those pesky kids seems like something else a "journalist" should have checked.
(ignoring inflation effects, I haven't looked into whether the numbers are in todays prices or not)
On the post: Pepsi Told To Pay Over A Billion Dollars For 'Stealing' The Idea For Bottled Water
only fools and litigators?
This was on an "only fools and horses" episode where they sold bottled tap water. Apparently first broadcast in 1992: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Nature%27s_Son_(Only_Fools_and_Horses)
If Pepsi started selling bottled tapwater in the mid nineties perhaps they could claim to be taking inspiration from DelBoy? :)
On the post: Photographers Can Do CwF+RtB Experiments, Too
three copies of the book?
On the post: Crowdsourcing Doesn't Guarantee Quality... But It Can Be Great Advertising
not as good as shakespeare?
On the post: UK Law Enforcement Tells UK Gov't: Please Don't Kick File Sharers Offline
more tea, less cctv monitoring
They're outsourcing monitoring cctv to the public now, so that only leaves drinking tea doesn't it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8293784.stm
(having said that I think the problem lies not with the boys in blue, but with the idiots in parliament - the ones who come up with the red tape, stupid ideas like ASBOs, letting problem estates fester, etc)
On the post: Do Real World Laws Apply In Virtual Worlds?
virtual crime?
I think you should be able to apply real world systems to virtual worlds. If theft is part of the game you can't complain, you accepted the game rules by playing. Hacking the game however is not something you agreed to.
As an example, consider playing poker in a casino. During the night, two things happen - you have a bad run and loose a lot of chips to player A, and some chips are stolen from your pocket by player B. This is comparable to player A's rogue using his ingame theft skill to steal some gold, and player B hacking your account to transfer some gold.
Now, casinos and games like second life have systems to convert their in-game currency (chips and linden dollars) to "real" currency such as USD. In what way is player B's actions in the MMORPG any different to his actions in the casino? If you want to make it more similar, imagine the casino operates by crediting a card with your tokens which you use to place bets, and player B isntead of picking your pocket hacks the servers.
I think most people would agree that player B committed theft in the casino, why not in the MMORPG?
The situation is muddied where there's not an authorised market in the in-game currency, such as for Warcraft, so I'll leave that for the lawyers.
(and downloading a song isn't "theft". Theft is defined as the wrongful taking of the property of another. By downloading a song you haven't taken away the property of anyone. You have breached copyright, which is illegal, but it's not theft)
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